Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

I have had what I think is a major breakthrough on the subject of ki and I have Mike Sigman, probably more than anyone, to thank for it. Also very influential have been Dan Harden, Rob John and Minoru Akuzawa.

This is a pretty subtle conception, so please read carefully and make sure you understand what I'm really saying before commenting. I'd like people who get what I'm saying to comment on this.

The change in thinking is that ki is literally a part of us, almost like an organ, like the bones, muscles and fascia and like the mind. All these elements are very different, one from the other, and must be used very differently. For example, we use our eyes in fighting, but we don't literally punch anything with our eyes. The use is different. Likewise, with people trying to determine how to make fascia contract, like muscle, it's a confusion of use. The muscle contracts, the fascia does something different.

And the mind is used in fighting, but obviously not in the same way as the muscles. But the mind affects the muscles and the fascia, and the fascia affects the muscles and the bones...

So now I think that ki is one of these kinds of parts of human beings. Just, like the fascial layer, it's a part that's easily overlooked or mistaken for something else when we account our assets.

Please pause especially here before responding.

It's always been said that ki was part of us, but more like a separate thing that moves through us. The distinction I make here is that it is a part of us like the mind or the hair.

It follows that if the ki is a part of our mind/body make-up, instead of a gas that passes through us—then we should be able to perceive it directly rather than through allusion.

So I have concluded that there is another actual layer of ourselves that is not an external energy and not really even an "energy" at all, as in "force," but part of us as in "an organ of the body" except that it is not physical. Maybe we could say that the ki is the interface of mind with body. Or ki is the computer screen that lets the mind interact with the body: the interface of mind to body. And it's also the root interface between the body and the world, through interacting with the ki of the world.

So it's sort of physical, but it's sort of mind.

But this fills some holes in some other lines of inquiry. Such as, "how do we use the fascia?" or "how do we influence the fascia?" We use the fascia to carry the ki through the body. We influence the fascia by flowing the ki through the fascial tissue. That's how the ki leads the body. The mind leads the ki and the ki flows through the fascia to where the mind leads. And the muscles contract in a smooth chain just enough, each, to accomplish the heart's desire. But the ki stays inside the body. It doesn't go anywhere. It's like a bubble or an aura that surrounds the human body, centered in the body but never going away from it.

The body has bones, blood vessels, nerves, fascia, muscles and skin. The Chinese say that the teeth are the extremity of the bones. The nails and hair are the extremity of the fascia.

Also, the mind is a part of the body when the body is alive. It comes out of the body like the fingernail emerges from the skin of the fingers, a discreet part of the thing, but different. And the ki grows between the mind and the body like hair grows from the head, different, but a very close part and maybe difficult to distinguish, one from the other.

To clarify that, I mean that I believe that the ki of an individual exists as soon as the sperm and egg are united. It's inherent in the human and it exists before the mind can form or begin to operate. It grows with the body, but it can only be cultivated and led by the mind. So it's a natural element of the mind/bod conglomeration. It precedes the mind, but its growth occurs between mind and body.

I'm told that science doesn't really accept the concept of a "mind" but only the concept of the brain. So by even discussing the mind, which we all know exists, we're already being unscientific. However, I do accept the concept of the mind and now I accept ki as something necessary for the body and mind to adhere to one another—not that the mind can't operate the body without using ki, because most people do just that. But if we consciously use ki in directing the body, it seems to improve the movements. I don't think now of "accumulating" ki in my body but of cultivating and developing the ki that is there as a part of me. I develop it through using it and through use of the ki of the world that I take in with my breath and food and drink.

To go a little further, I think the next thing is to work on perceiving this element of the body, which requires deep attention to ourself to see if we can notice ki in operation as we do things. But it also requires attention to others to see how ki operates in them. It means watching them and observing how they do things and seeing if you can tell which things come from the operation of ki.

So what are we looking for?

I can tell you some things that it likes: it like the sense of flowing motion, steady, smooth and uninterrupted, but sometimes fast and sometimes slow. But always smooth. And fast or slow, always still within itself. It likes deep breathing and a relaxed body. It likes being connected within itself and to everything around it.

How can we influence it?

Tai chi and silk reeling are recommended. Deep breathing, keeping the hands smooth, stretching the spine up, eating and drinking good things in moderation. But most important to having good ki is to have a good mental state. A rushed, distracted, nervous, tired mind will also influence the ki in a negative way. A positive, rested, observant mind is very good for the ki.

What can we do with it?

The most important thing we can do with our ki, I now recognize, is to connect ourselves with others and the universe. But as humans, we really have the bulk of our lives in close interactions with other people, so getting a connection with them is vital (besides being the natural thing). The fact is, we are very social and all desire connection with others, like so many pikachu, but society quickly grinds most of that out of us and where it is still necessary, society tends to choke it down to the lowest possible level. So people are hungry for connection and ki can let us connect with others in a subtle but fulfilling way that can only be good.

How can we fight with it?

Visit Mike, Dan, Rob or Ark and follow their instructions.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Hi David. I love thinking about this stuff and I can see that you do too. I wish I had more time for internet stuff-- there is such a rich combination of things that I agree with and disagree with in here. I'm sure there are lots of conversations to be had from this one post. For my part I'll start with just a couple things.
I can see that I think kind of on the same lines as you do, although I definitely think about some things differently, like the definition of ki. But I certainly agree it is a part of us. Body vs mind is tricky, but I'd say there is a tiny line between intent and ki, and they are tied at the hip across that line. The line separates what is body and what is mind.. so although intent and ki in this model are almost 2 sides of one coin, I feel that the ki is decidedly body and the intent is mind. If I understand these things correctly.

One other thing: I thought about the physical ki of the body for a long time. In other words trying to define or understand physiologically. But, what about defining or understanding functionally? In other words, not what is the makeup of ki, but what are the defining functional characteristics? From that point of view (which is NOT in conflict with the majority of what you said about the physiological ki), ki does pass through us. In other words we can "conduct" the ki of heaven and the ki of the earth through our bodies.
And-- regarding ki staying inside us rather than being outside, again I totally agree from the physiological point of view. But functionally, you could say the ki does extend outside-- it's like making the eye see implied line (if that makes any sense).

Quote:

David Orange wrote:

I don't think now of "accumulating" ki in my body but of cultivating and developing the ki that is there as a part of me.

I have had what I think is a major breakthrough on the subject of ki and I have Mike Sigman, probably more than anyone, to thank for it. Also very influential have been Dan Harden, Rob John and Minoru Akuzawa.

This is a pretty subtle conception, so please read carefully and make sure you understand what I'm really saying before commenting. I'd like people who get what I'm saying to comment on this.

The change in thinking is that ki is literally a part of us, almost like an organ, like the bones, muscles and fascia and like the mind. All these elements are very different, one from the other, and must be used very differently. For example, we use our eyes in fighting, but we don't literally punch anything with our eyes. The use is different. Likewise, with people trying to determine how to make fascia contract, like muscle, it's a confusion of use. The muscle contracts, the fascia does something different.

And the mind is used in fighting, but obviously not in the same way as the muscles. But the mind affects the muscles and the fascia, and the fascia affects the muscles and the bones...

So now I think that ki is one of these kinds of parts of human beings. Just, like the fascial layer, it's a part that's easily overlooked or mistaken for something else when we account our assets.

Please pause especially here before responding.

It's always been said that ki was part of us, but more like a separate thing that moves through us. The distinction I make here is that it is a part of us like the mind or the hair.

It follows that if the ki is a part of our mind/body make-up, instead of a gas that passes through us—then we should be able to perceive it directly rather than through allusion.

So I have concluded that there is another actual layer of ourselves that is not an external energy and not really even an "energy" at all, as in "force," but part of us as in "an organ of the body" except that it is not physical. Maybe we could say that the ki is the interface of mind with body. Or ki is the computer screen that lets the mind interact with the body: the interface of mind to body. And it's also the root interface between the body and the world, through interacting with the ki of the world.

So it's sort of physical, but it's sort of mind.

But this fills some holes in some other lines of inquiry. Such as, "how do we use the fascia?" or "how do we influence the fascia?" We use the fascia to carry the ki through the body. We influence the fascia by flowing the ki through the fascial tissue. That's how the ki leads the body. The mind leads the ki and the ki flows through the fascia to where the mind leads. And the muscles contract in a smooth chain just enough, each, to accomplish the heart's desire. But the ki stays inside the body. It doesn't go anywhere. It's like a bubble or an aura that surrounds the human body, centered in the body but never going away from it.

The body has bones, blood vessels, nerves, fascia, muscles and skin. The Chinese say that the teeth are the extremity of the bones. The nails and hair are the extremity of the fascia.

Also, the mind is a part of the body when the body is alive. It comes out of the body like the fingernail emerges from the skin of the fingers, a discreet part of the thing, but different. And the ki grows between the mind and the body like hair grows from the head, different, but a very close part and maybe difficult to distinguish, one from the other.

To clarify that, I mean that I believe that the ki of an individual exists as soon as the sperm and egg are united. It's inherent in the human and it exists before the mind can form or begin to operate. It grows with the body, but it can only be cultivated and led by the mind. So it's a natural element of the mind/bod conglomeration. It precedes the mind, but its growth occurs between mind and body.

I'm told that science doesn't really accept the concept of a "mind" but only the concept of the brain. So by even discussing the mind, which we all know exists, we're already being unscientific. However, I do accept the concept of the mind and now I accept ki as something necessary for the body and mind to adhere to one another—not that the mind can't operate the body without using ki, because most people do just that. But if we consciously use ki in directing the body, it seems to improve the movements. I don't think now of "accumulating" ki in my body but of cultivating and developing the ki that is there as a part of me. I develop it through using it and through use of the ki of the world that I take in with my breath and food and drink.

To go a little further, I think the next thing is to work on perceiving this element of the body, which requires deep attention to ourself to see if we can notice ki in operation as we do things. But it also requires attention to others to see how ki operates in them. It means watching them and observing how they do things and seeing if you can tell which things come from the operation of ki.

So what are we looking for?

I can tell you some things that it likes: it like the sense of flowing motion, steady, smooth and uninterrupted, but sometimes fast and sometimes slow. But always smooth. And fast or slow, always still within itself. It likes deep breathing and a relaxed body. It likes being connected within itself and to everything around it.

How can we influence it?

Tai chi and silk reeling are recommended. Deep breathing, keeping the hands smooth, stretching the spine up, eating and drinking good things in moderation. But most important to having good ki is to have a good mental state. A rushed, distracted, nervous, tired mind will also influence the ki in a negative way. A positive, rested, observant mind is very good for the ki.

What can we do with it?

The most important thing we can do with our ki, I now recognize, is to connect ourselves with others and the universe. But as humans, we really have the bulk of our lives in close interactions with other people, so getting a connection with them is vital (besides being the natural thing). The fact is, we are very social and all desire connection with others, like so many pikachu, but society quickly grinds most of that out of us and where it is still necessary, society tends to choke it down to the lowest possible level. So people are hungry for connection and ki can let us connect with others in a subtle but fulfilling way that can only be good.

How can we fight with it?

How does it work? Show me. Epiphanies are not results.

Quote:

Visit Mike, Dan, Rob or Ark and follow their instructions.

Don't do it. Learn to think. Gather data. Work on it yourself because it really is a "Tao" (Do). If you can't figure a lot of it out yourself, no one can show you enough. On the other hand, if you aren't selective about information and don't get enough information, you can only figure out bits and pieces. It's a journey, not a group of seminars.

Well, seeing it now as a semi-physical part of myself, I intend to spend a lot of time trying to observe it in action in myself and in others and then start trying subtle interactions with other people.

In other words, I don't know how it works, but now that I know where it lives, I think I'm going to learn a lot more about it.

These things I've written above are very close to the old kinds of ideas I was busy with 35 years ago, but the fundamental difference is looking at it as a permanent part of self, like the fingernails are part of the fingers, but they're neither bone nor skin....

It just feels like a real start to understanding, but I'm looking at myself this time, instead of an imaginary gas or "power" that I have to "get" from outside. ((I know we take in some from outside, but the primary part of it for humans, I now believe, is a permanent part of each person)).

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

Don't do it. Learn to think. Gather data. Work on it yourself because it really is a "Tao" (Do).

I appreciate that, but, frankly, I never would have left the technique paradigm without the ideas I've understood in conversations (and arguments) here, and without the direct contact with people who can use these elements in such powerful synergy. I'll work on it alone and with others, but I still need to meet some important folks such as yourself and Forrest Chang.

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

If you can't figure a lot of it out yourself, no one can show you enough.

Agreed, but I wouldn't have pulled up the corner of this conundrum without a lot of clues from others with experience.

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

On the other hand, if you aren't selective about information and don't get enough information, you can only figure out bits and pieces. It's a journey, not a group of seminars.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

How does it work? Show me. Epiphanies are not results. Don't do it. Learn to think. Gather data. Work on it yourself because it really is a "Tao" (Do). If you can't figure a lot of it out yourself, no one can show you enough. On the other hand, if you aren't selective about information and don't get enough information, you can only figure out bits and pieces. It's a journey, not a group of seminars.

FWIW

Mike Sigman

I'll second that. Any Western rescript of the idea of Ki, be it physical, geometric, poetic or otherwise must account not only for its recognition in modern martial arts usage but in the tradition from which it springs, and in areas far outside the martial context. Tradition holds that Ki is active in the sea, the wind, the earth, and all manner of things, and including empty space.

A conception which can meaningfully capture more of those aspects of the traditional recognition of the Ki concept is more likely to be applicable and usefully understood, and more likely a basis from which to extend those observations into areas the tradition does not address or never conceived of in those terms. The latter is the true task of our age, IMO.

A conception which can meaningfully capture more of those aspects of the traditional recognition of the Ki concept is more likely to be applicable and usefully understood, and more likely a basis from which to extend those observations into areas the tradition does not address or never conceived of in those terms. The latter is the true task of our age, IMO.

As I've said a number of times, I'm interested in watching what Aikido as a whole does with the current slight entre' into things ki. I don't have a dog in this hunt (except with some of the more serious players), so I tend to be an observer.

One of the things that I notice most is that few people in "Aikido" are really interested in these things, even though there are plenty of indications that this was a critical part of Aikido. Of the people that are interested, everyone I've seen (outside of the QiJin forum mainly, but even some of them are guilty, too) so far has a limited grasp of the whole, but the idea seems to generally be that if a few jin/kokyu tricks can be grasped they have learned "aiki" or "Internal Strength". No. Internal strength is more than basic jin skills.

"Epiphanies" are good, but there is an implication of unraveling a secret, like a card trick for instance. It's actually a lot more complicated than that. I mentioned a couple of times that most people seem to be hanging around basic jin skills and calling it "internal strength". Even grabbing buzzwords like "reverse breathing", "dantien", "suit", and so on isn't going to get someone into the part that they're completely missing without backing up and getting an understanding of the whole.

In my opinion, the idea of little kingdoms and fiefdoms, now with access to "this stuff", is going to kill any forward progress in actual Aikido. "Epiphanies" alone isn't going to do it... there's no simple trick to it. However, of the positive things someone can do, talking openly among the members of the Aikido community will move the art as a whole forward nicely. So I'm basically suggesting that people, even the current groups that think they're part of the cognoscenti, openly discuss more of the how-to's and share their information among the wider community. At least the basics. If someone's knowledge is so slight that talking about basics would give away most of the 'edge' they have over others... then trust me, a more open discussion will actually be beneficial to you, too.

Keep on with those epiphanies, David, and keep sharing them. It's a viable start.

Keep on with those epiphanies, David, and keep sharing them. It's a viable start.

I guess the real epiphany here is that my perception has changed from looking at ki as a separate thing to looking at it like "my" ki--like "my hand" or "my foot".

It was a breakthrough when I recognized the fascia as a more or less complete layer of human being.

Now I see that ki is a layer of me like mind is, and fascia and bones. I know that there is ki in the universe but now I know that I have my own and that I can do things with it. It's suddenly not theoretical, but here in me.

As for using it, I want to start with the basics of just feeling how it lives and how it works.

But right away, it fills in a gap in the layers between the body and the mind.

The first thing I'm concentrating on is how it feels and makes me feel and how it connects me with other people and affects the way they feel around me. And it affects the way I feel about them.

Without this awareness, we are separate individuals (egoes--in the sense of separate creatures, not in the sense of big-heads). With this awareness, we can directly experience the connection with others. So our ki is alive and it has sensory functions as well as communication functions in addition to the life functions it supports. So I'm starting to sense with that sense "organ" now.

And this explains a tremendous amount about Japanese culture and haragei. I knew this intellectually, but now I can really feel it. Among Japanese, they sense each other's presence and connections and intentions and inclinations rather than talking about them. Persuasion is less a matter of winning an intellectual argument than of making the other person feel so connected to you that they will support whatever you say.

All in all, it's a very refreshing feeling.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

I guess the real epiphany here is that my perception has changed from looking at ki as a separate thing to looking at it like "my" ki--like "my hand" or "my foot".

It was a breakthrough when I recognized the fascia as a more or less complete layer of human being.

Now I see that ki is a layer of me like mind is, and fascia and bones. I know that there is ki in the universe but now I know that I have my own and that I can do things with it. It's suddenly not theoretical, but here in me.

As for using it, I want to start with the basics of just feeling how it lives and how it works.

But right away, it fills in a gap in the layers between the body and the mind.

The first thing I'm concentrating on is how it feels and makes me feel and how it connects me with other people and affects the way they feel around me. And it affects the way I feel about them.

Without this awareness, we are separate individuals (egoes--in the sense of separate creatures, not in the sense of big-heads). With this awareness, we can directly experience the connection with others. So our ki is alive and it has sensory functions as well as communication functions in addition to the life functions it supports. So I'm starting to sense with that sense "organ" now.

And this explains a tremendous amount about Japanese culture and haragei. I knew this intellectually, but now I can really feel it. Among Japanese, they sense each other's presence and connections and intentions and inclinations rather than talking about them. Persuasion is less a matter of winning an intellectual argument than of making the other person feel so connected to you that they will support whatever you say.

All in all, it's a very refreshing feeling.

Thanks.

David

Hi David,

IMO, some very good perspectives on how to view it and learn to know it better - I will try to incorporate aspects of your approach in my continuous pursuit of this stuff.

I look to what I've experienced for a lot of things. When I look to the people who are interested in these things, I find that they realize they're beginners. They realize there's a whole lot to this stuff. They feel like kids in a candy store because of the huge potential this stuff has to make their martial art worth something more to them.

They are a wide diversity of people from all aikido organizations ... well, let's just name those organizations, shall we. Ki Society, Shodokan, Yoshinkan, ASU, USAF, Aikikai, Birankai, and offshoots of the above. These people that I've stood in rooms with and trained with, all (except for the very rare one or two individuals) were upstanding, hard working, intelligent, witty, and great people there to learn this stuff. None so far have heralded that they know it all. In fact, the opposite. They've realized how deep this stuff is and are all that more giddy at learning, training, discovering it.

That's just the aikido side of it. Let's add the rest of the people from karate, judo, FMAs, BJJ, TKD, CMAs and Daito ryu. They're just like the aikido people I've described above.

Every one of them is working on these skills. Not only that, but they are doing it across organizations! Talk about working together. They are white belts to shihans. These people, by working together, bring hope not only to their own art, but to all the martial arts involved. I don't know of anything in the history of the martial arts that has brought people together like it has now. Aiki, internal strength, internal skills, internal power, whatever you want to call it, has been shown to be a decidedly specific training paradigm to instill solid martial skills in a person's body such that it begins to fulfill what the martial arts were there for in the first place. To. Be. Strong. And if you take that as a negative, you should research what that really means.

This group talks more about this stuff than ever before. The talk takes place in emails, forums, phone conversations and in person. Talks range from basic concepts to more advanced stuff that perhaps one can't yet do, but is looking forward to. From history to current trends and everything in between.

Just to show the dedication of these people, I know about one person who had traveled to another state for a different kind of training. This person had been up for over 12 hours, then drove for 4 hours to get together with some people to talk and train this internal stuff for a couple of hours. Then drove 4 hours back before getting just a few hours sleep to get up the next day.

Or another person who flew long hours from another country.

Or several people who have picked up and moved to where they can train.

So, I look at the hundreds of people from across the United States and a few countries and I see them reaching out to one another to help each other become better. They train together, tend to buy each other meals, share expenses, cut some slack when people are having financial difficulties, pool together to help other people, and support each other. Hundreds. From about every martial art there is. I think what some people have reiterated to me is relevant here: Budo Is All About Relationships.

IMO, some very good perspectives on how to view it and learn to know it better - I will try to incorporate aspects of your approach in my continuous pursuit of this stuff.

Thanks, Greg. I'm exhillarated and refresehed. I'm not even seriously worried about how to apply this in martial context. It's just so amazing to realize very directly that I have a whole other level of myself that I just lost touch with. As if I had more of a grasp of it earlier--no. I just read a lot of what Tohei and Ueshiba said and I believed it and tried to understand and use it.

But it was as an individual trying to get something that was not part of himself.

Now it's the recognition that it's a part of me like my heart is part of me. Now I'm feeling with this newly-recognized sense organ that does so much more than just sense things....

With my wife, for instance, I suddenly realized that trying to connect with her through discussing the various public and private issues and responsibilites we shared was not doing it. When I just shifted my attention to feeling her ki with my ki, there was an immediate change and without my having said or done anything unusual, it seemed that she felt a lot more comfortable and relaxed. Because I was feeling the union of ourselves instead of being a "self" trying to discuss some issue with another "self". And my son was suddenly much calmer and better behaved last night, as well. I think they both felt this level of connection that removed any doubts or underlying anxieties they might have.

Now, as Mike said, seeing the whole picture is difficult. Realizing that you have fascia is one thing, but realizing that the fascia carries the ki and that the ki (your own ki) is already circulating through the body via the fascia causes a lot of the things already said about fascia to become clear. The fascia affects the ki and the ki affects the fascia. They're meant to work together with the mind and the bones/muscles/nerves/organs to make a complete person.

Also, some more recognitions about the fascia or "the suit".

1. Don't crease the suit!

if you use Mike's balloon analogy, you can bend the suit, but when you crease it, it seriously weakens the value and also constricts the flow of the ki. So you want to keep the suit soft, open and not creased.

2. I think the suit responds very differently to ki than to anything else.

So if you try to electrify fascial tissue to make it contract, you're missing the point. You can chemicalize it, electrify it or do whatever you want to study it, but it won't give the same kind of results at fascia energized by the ki.

And a bunch of other stuff.

I started aikido in 2/74 but didn't stick with it. When I came back some months later, I saw a guy who was there the first night I attended. I asked him, "Have you found your ki yet?"

For years after that, that question seemed stupid.

But now my feeling is that, almost 40 years later, I have found my ki.

Now, as to martial arts, I think we all understand now that the "universal" ki and the way we would use ki in martial arts are not quite the same thing. The martial arts require refinement and development of the ki. So this first step I've taken is not a declaration that now I can fajing King Kong. Using this for martial arts is still going to take a lot of development.

But I'm still psyched!

Best to all.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

I think he would roll his eyes and shake his head at me, but I think he would be smiling.

Really, from one day to the next, I feel much less like a separate individual having problems with other people and more like a drop of water in a great ocean, just moving along with all the rest of us.

It's a better feeling but it still puts the work back on me.

Best to you.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

I look to what I've experienced for a lot of things. When I look to the people who are interested in these things, I find that they realize they're beginners. They realize there's a whole lot to this stuff. They feel like kids in a candy store because of the huge potential this stuff has to make their martial art worth something more to them.

They are a wide diversity of people from all aikido organizations ... well, let's just name those organizations, shall we. Ki Society, Shodokan, Yoshinkan, ASU, USAF, Aikikai, Birankai, and offshoots of the above. These people that I've stood in rooms with and trained with, all (except for the very rare one or two individuals) were upstanding, hard working, intelligent, witty, and great people there to learn this stuff. None so far have heralded that they know it all. In fact, the opposite. They've realized how deep this stuff is and are all that more giddy at learning, training, discovering it.

That's just the aikido side of it. Let's add the rest of the people from karate, judo, FMAs, BJJ, TKD, CMAs and Daito ryu. They're just like the aikido people I've described above.

Every one of them is working on these skills. Not only that, but they are doing it across organizations! Talk about working together. They are white belts to shihans. These people, by working together, bring hope not only to their own art, but to all the martial arts involved. I don't know of anything in the history of the martial arts that has brought people together like it has now. Aiki, internal strength, internal skills, internal power, whatever you want to call it, has been shown to be a decidedly specific training paradigm to instill solid martial skills in a person's body such that it begins to fulfill what the martial arts were there for in the first place. To. Be. Strong. And if you take that as a negative, you should research what that really means.

This group talks more about this stuff than ever before. The talk takes place in emails, forums, phone conversations and in person. Talks range from basic concepts to more advanced stuff that perhaps one can't yet do, but is looking forward to. From history to current trends and everything in between.

Just to show the dedication of these people, I know about one person who had traveled to another state for a different kind of training. This person had been up for over 12 hours, then drove for 4 hours to get together with some people to talk and train this internal stuff for a couple of hours. Then drove 4 hours back before getting just a few hours sleep to get up the next day.

Or another person who flew long hours from another country.

Or several people who have picked up and moved to where they can train.

So, I look at the hundreds of people from across the United States and a few countries and I see them reaching out to one another to help each other become better. They train together, tend to buy each other meals, share expenses, cut some slack when people are having financial difficulties, pool together to help other people, and support each other. Hundreds. From about every martial art there is. I think what some people have reiterated to me is relevant here: Budo Is All About Relationships.

Right now, I see Aiki building Golden Bridges.

Ueshiba would be proud.

Nice post Mark - and a good summary of what I have being seeing as well - of course, some of that experience has been with you

Aiki, internal strength, internal skills, internal power, whatever you want to call it, has been shown to be a decidedly specific training paradigm to instill solid martial skills in a person's body such that it begins to fulfill what the martial arts were there for in the first place. To. Be. Strong. And if you take that as a negative, you should research what that really means.

Well, I'd disagree that "Aiki", as it has been characterized on this forum is the same thing as "internal strength". I'd be willing to say that it can be *part* of internal strength, but I haven't seen anyone really encapsulate internal strength in a term like "Aiki", although I understand the implication. It's demonstrably not really accurate, though. Not that I'm concerned about it; I just wanted to note it for the record, as I've done a few times before.

Quote:

Right now, I see Aiki building Golden Bridges.

Ueshiba would be proud.

Well, it's a positive expression. However, pretty much the same comment could have been found (more or less) a number of times in the past about just plain "Aikido". Building bridges. Discussions about the high-level of Aikido, and so forth. But then, think back to the explosions and personal rancor that burst out when this latest topic of ki/kokyu, etc., developed on the forum. I'd suggest that if Ikeda Sensei hadn't been involved with ki-development things, that the whole topic would have been quashed largely by Aikido "seniors" who at the time insisted there was nothing about Aikido that they didn't already know.

Fast forward to the reported scenario of people saying something to the effect of "I didn't know that I didn't know". One of the troubling parts to that particular scenario, in my personal opinion, is that I know from experience that it's very difficult for most people with habituated movement patterns in a martial-art to make the radical changeover to "move from the hara". What's pretty easy to do is to get a few here-and-there aspects of muscle-jin and sigh in self-satisfaction. Not that I knock it, if that's what people want to do, but I think that they should know what they don't know before they run into another "I didn't know that I didn't know situation" (and there is a big one looming).

So sure, just as some 'seniors' in Aikido knew all there was to know before some of the jin/kokyu stuff (and some guesses about other things) came along, it's easy for someone to set themselves up in exactly the same assumptive manner that there's really not much more to learn. But think again about the body mechanics and how doing something like Aikido (or judo or whatever) wrong for a number of years can actually make progress more difficult later on when someone finds out that they "didn't know that they didn't know". My point to David was that open discussions and epiphanies being thrashed out in public could probably save the same embarrassing situation of "I didn't know that I didn't know" from happening again. Although I would hope that the search is actually for knowledge and not just the "I'm an expert" stuff that caught a lot of experts this last time around.

So kudos to David. I'm going to be interested to watch how this develops in the Aikido community.

Well, I'd disagree that "Aiki", as it has been characterized on this forum is the same thing as "internal strength". I'd be willing to say that it can be *part* of internal strength, but I haven't seen anyone really encapsulate internal strength in a term like "Aiki", although I understand the implication. It's demonstrably not really accurate, though. Not that I'm concerned about it; I just wanted to note it for the record, as I've done a few times before.

The danger might really be that anyone's characterization of "internal strength" is actually different from anyone else's, and that in our rush to be good social animals and conform to a consistent definition, we squash our understandings to fit with someone else's conception rather than embracing ambiguity and diversity in understanding and application. I would see reducing things down to a single terminology as an overall negative in terms of making us frightened of sharing, rather than free to share things that might not fit into a hivemind mentality. It may make us believe we already know things we don't by virtue of using the same term to describe very different nuances and so decrease the drive to learn new things.

If someone wants to call their thing "aiki", and someone wants to call their thing "internal strength", all the better, because 5 minutes in-person together will easily clear up the value of each amongst the proponents of each that 5 months, maybe 5 years, of discussion would never do, and usually ends up in sharing some beers rather than invocations of Godwin's law.

Quote:

Fast forward to the reported scenario of people saying something to the effect of "I didn't know that I didn't know". One of the troubling parts to that particular scenario, in my personal opinion, is that I know from experience that it's very difficult for most people with habituated movement patterns in a martial-art to make the radical changeover to "move from the hara". What's pretty easy to do is to get a few here-and-there aspects of muscle-jin and sigh in self-satisfaction. Not that I knock it, if that's what people want to do, but I think that they should know what they don't know before they run into another "I didn't know that I didn't know situation" (and there is a big one looming).

But should it be difficult? Shouldn't it feel so ridiculously and obviously better to apply our body in a certain way that we simply want to give up our old habitual patterns, because once having tasted another way, the old patterns just feel silly? The nuance in my question there is of actually feeling the better way subjectively, rather than just trying to mechanically mimic some pattern of movements or exercises, thus pushing the difficulty of the issue onto getting that feeling... Or is it not that way?

I know I've reached a point where a lot of things have been thrust in front of me, and once having felt them, there was simply no going back, ever. They changed how I open doors, how I lift every day objects, how I walk or stand even, not even getting into what their martial applications were... And these ideas probably were not very deep on the rabbit hole scale you are implying.

The danger might really be that anyone's characterization of "internal strength" is actually different from anyone else's, and that in our rush to be good social animals and conform to a consistent definition, we squash our understandings to fit with someone else's conception rather than embracing ambiguity and diversity in understanding and application. I would see reducing things down to a single terminology as an overall negative in terms of making us frightened of sharing, rather than free to share things that might not fit into a hivemind mentality. It may make us believe we already know things we don't by virtue of using the same term to describe very different nuances and so decrease the drive to learn new things.

Well, and I've said this before, there's already a very consistent terminology about these skills. What's happened in the West is that there's still some idea that someone can make up their own particular take on these skills and legitimately apply the terminology to that take. I disagree with the approach in the same way that I disagree that someone can "do their own thang" and legitimately call it "Aikido" or "Taijiquan" or "Yiquan", or whatever, because the implication then becomes that the terms have no fixed meaning and worst of all, there is no incorrect way to do things. Of course there's an incorrect way to do things. Look how much time Ueshiba spent parroting the classical literature, in part as an indicator that he understood the correct way to do things (notice his use of the 4 Poles or Eight Gates, as an example).

Quote:

But should it be difficult? Shouldn't it feel so ridiculously and obviously better to apply our body in a certain way that we simply want to give up our old habitual patterns, because once having tasted another way, the old patterns just feel silly? The nuance in my question there is of actually feeling the better way subjectively, rather than just trying to mechanically mimic some pattern of movements or exercises, thus pushing the difficulty of the issue onto getting that feeling... Or is it not that way?

I don't know for sure about "feeling" as a criterion for the simple reason that most people are neophytes and can't really differentiate between, for example, a large dollop of power done one way to them and a large dollop of power done a very different way to them. Right? But that being said, yes there should be demonstrable and 'feelable" results, *plus* there should be a statable logic that makes sense in terms of physics/physiology. If it was just opinions, it would be a waste of time. Discussion, as David and Mark and a few others are doing is a good thing. I'd encourage it, personally.

Quote:

I know I've reached a point where a lot of things have been thrust in front of me, and once having felt them, there was simply no going back, ever. They changed how I open doors, how I lift every day objects, how I walk or stand even, not even getting into what their martial applications were... And these ideas probably were not very deep on the rabbit hole scale you are implying.

It sounds like you are talking about basic jin things. Good. Keep practicing. Do you see the logic of the fact that it takes a long time to acquire even that skill to the point where it is automatic and that if you jumped too quickly into applications, competition, etc., you really wouldn't have had sufficient time to imbue those skills so you'd be in effect practicing two different forms of movement? Ueshiba was doing the traditional thing by forbidding too-early competition, as you should easily see.

Well, and I've said this before, there's already a very consistent terminology about these skills. What's happened in the West is that there's still some idea that someone can make up their own particular take on these skills and legitimately apply the terminology to that take. I disagree with the approach in the same way that I disagree that someone can "do their own thang" and legitimately call it "Aikido" or "Taijiquan" or "Yiquan", or whatever, because the implication then becomes that the terms have no fixed meaning and worst of all, there is no incorrect way to do things. Of course there's an incorrect way to do things. Look how much time Ueshiba spent parroting the classical literature, in part as an indicator that he understood the correct way to do things (notice his use of the 4 Poles or Eight Gates, as an example).

The terminology is peanuts, though. Why begrudge someone for explaining an idea as they truly understand it? What seems more important is the ability to get someone else to do it. If someone is not getting something, should we feel bound by standardized methods of passing on information and practicing, placing all the burden on the student to make them work, or is it not better to continually reframe the issue until it does manage to convey the subjective experience of an idea (which may defy any and all terminology), if our goal is in fact to pass on ability?

Quote:

I don't know for sure about "feeling" as a criterion for the simple reason that most people are neophytes and can't really differentiate between, for example, a large dollop of power done one way to them and a large dollop of power done a very different way to them. Right? But that being said, yes there should be demonstrable and 'feelable" results, *plus* there should be a statable logic that makes sense in terms of physics/physiology. If it was just opinions, it would be a waste of time.

To clarify, I don't mean the student feeling something done to him, I mean the student feeling himself doing the thing, the subjective experience of the action itself.

Quote:

It sounds like you are talking about basic jin things. Good. Keep practicing. Do you see the logic of the fact that it takes a long time to acquire even that skill to the point where it is automatic and that if you jumped too quickly into applications, competition, etc., you really wouldn't have had sufficient time to imbue those skills so you'd be in effect practicing two different forms of movement? Ueshiba was doing the traditional thing by forbidding too-early competition, as you should easily see.

In my own practice, there is a time and place for discovering abilities, a place for refining them, and a place for verifying/testing them in reality. First I need to feel what it feels like inside me, then I need to work on reproducing that on a reliable basis and strengthening it, then I need to find contexts where that ability breaks down to feed back into the discovery and refinement processes. I think so long as that progression is clear in my head, competition/verification in reality is extremely valuable to me, but not by itself a thing that fulfills all parts of that progression.

But if I just jumped to the end part of that progression without having anything in mind I wanted to verify, it does me no real good, true (as empirically determined by many years of floundering). But at the same time, if I don't test what I am building regularly, I may be building nothing or even worse, something that I don't want or didn't Intend (also as empirically determined by years of floundering ).

The terminology is peanuts, though. Why begrudge someone for explaining an idea as they truly understand it? What seems more important is the ability to get someone else to do it. If someone is not getting something, should we feel bound by standardized methods of passing on information and practicing, placing all the burden on the student to make them work, or is it not better to continually reframe the issue until it does manage to convey the subjective experience of an idea (which may defy any and all terminology), if our goal is in fact to pass on ability?

Well, let's use that same logic to argue that almost anyone can (and does) teach their impression of Aikido as "explaining an idea as they truly understand it". They "get people to do Aikido" and wear black culottes... who can tell the difference? And so on. Right now, I'll guarantee you that there are a number of different takes being taught by a number of different people as "aiki". Are they all teaching the students what could convincingly be taught as passable jin/kokyu skills in classical martial-arts? They can't be. So yes, there's a reason to try to mesh terms with the accepted definitions.

Remember the old "Teacher Test" I did that everyone made too much noise about? What happened was that after listening to some self-styled "Xingyi" teacher drone on an on about himself for 4 hours, in desperation I asked him to place his palm on my (right) chest and hit me without pulling his hand back. So he did. And it was very obvious that after all the talk about "internal", his ability to hit was still mostly shoulder derived. Not dantien/hara. That immediately tells us about all the rest of the stuff he does and logically, he doesn't really do justice to a so-called "internal" martial art. Would you suggest that his take on "internal" was a valid one?

Well, let's use that same logic to argue that almost anyone can (and does) teach their impression of Aikido as "explaining an idea as they truly understand it". They "get people to do Aikido" and wear black culottes... who can tell the difference? And so on. Right now, I'll guarantee you that there are a number of different takes being taught by a number of different people as "aiki". Are they all teaching the students what could convincingly be taught as passable jin/kokyu skills in classical martial-arts? They can't be. So yes, there's a reason to try to mesh terms with the accepted definitions.

Remember the old "Teacher Test" I did that everyone made too much noise about? What happened was that after listening to some self-styled "Xingyi" teacher drone on an on about himself for 4 hours, in desperation I asked him to place his palm on my (right) chest and hit me without pulling his hand back. So he did. And it was very obvious that after all the talk about "internal", his ability to hit was still mostly shoulder derived. Not dantien/hara. That immediately tells us about all the rest of the stuff he does and logically, he doesn't really do justice to a so-called "internal" martial art. Would you suggest that his take on "internal" was a valid one?

Mike

We're agreeing here in this scenario, just to be clear about that and get it out of the way. Yeah, at some point you can't just telepath all communication between two people, and you do need to be able to share some ideas. But if the concept the words are pointing at has not actually been shared between the conversants, words can only do harm (song quote very intended). So where and when is terminology useful? And yah, as you point out, one test is worth an unlimited supply of words...

If he just showed what he was doing and didn't try to label it as anything, the misunderstanding would have never happened. He moved one way, you would have liked him to move another way to agree with a certain definition. I think I am just saying that "internal" might be too broad and reductive a term that it will inherently always create such misunderstandings. Terminology might be better left for scenarios that are easier to verify. Instead, maybe we are better off training together and sharing that way so we clear up misunderstandings sooner before they are roaring debates and create animosity.

Terminology might be better left for scenarios that are easier to verify. Instead, maybe we are better off training together and sharing that way so we clear up misunderstandings sooner before they are roaring debates and create animosity.

Well, just the basic entre' (not the whole thing, by any means) into a discussion of "internal strength" is going to be the ability to move the body from the dantien and it should be an ingrained ability. If in a simple push against my chest a person has to use his shoulder, he's not even in the discussion. Some dantien/hara and a lot of muscle on top of it would also be telling. Incomplete ki development would also be instantly obvious. Use of the dantien in an inefficient way would also show up. There's a logic to these kinds of movements that precludes everyone's opinion as being "just as valid as Joe's opinion". Doesn't work like that.

But whatever. I'm happy to watch people do whatever is their fancy, so don't get me wrong. It's just that the logic is pretty immutable and I was arguing against the idea that everyone's opinion is valid. It can't be. Not every scratching of numbers on the blackboard is proper mathematics, either.

He describes Aiki in terms very similar to yours. For example, on pages 30-31 he writes:

"(After doing sumo exercises for 14 years)... I realised I wasn't training my muscles, but rather something inside my body...something very near the core of the body that was not the physical body was being strengthened by the exercise....these are conscious techniques...not muscular power or Ki. However, since the conscious world is non-material, it usually has no influence over the physical world. Aiki is like a key to combine them."

"(After doing sumo exercises for 14 years)... I realised I wasn't training my muscles, but rather something inside my body...something very near the core of the body that was not the physical body was being strengthened by the exercise....these are conscious techniques...not muscular power or Ki. However, since the conscious world is non-material, it usually has no influence over the physical world. Aiki is like a key to combine them."

Oisin,

Thanks for that!

Earlier, I would have said it makes sense, but that would have been in an intellectual way. Now it makes sense in a physical way. But what he says here is a lot more than what I've noticed.

I'm not sure if Discovering Aiki is the book I read. I did read Kimura's recently translated book on Sagawa and aiki but I've loaned it out and haven't seen it in a while. In that book, Sagawa is quoted as saying that aiki is a battle between souls.

And that's another part of this topic. It's sort of like a forensic dissection of martial arts conducted by martial artists. For years we've been taking apart the muscles and the bones and nervous system and it was like a new age when fascia was recognized—even though the Chinese had been telling us about it. And once we had fascia to consider, it was "how do you make the fascia contract?" thinking that the only way to use it was like you use muscles.

And now we've got the body pretty well illuminated, but until now, my thinking has really been that the brain controls the body via the nerves, like a robot with electrical circuits running through the extremities to operate servos and make it walk and move its arms, etc.

And that brings us finally to the interface between mind and body. And seeing that as ki....that has always been there, when I thought it was something I had to somehow make or get....

It's like someone telling you "Your car must have an alternator to work," so you search everywhere for years to find an "alternator" and travel and spend tons of money in the search for an "alternator" until one day...

But we also have the tradition of "soul" and "spirit," and it's not uncommon for ki to be understood as "spirit". Which may be the best, really, for the functions I understand ki to fulfill. However, last night, discussing this with a biologist and a doctor from India, we were comparing it to the concept of pran, which the Indians understand as "soul". And the biologist believed that there is too much physical aspect for ki to be "spirit". The thing is, in the Western tradition, the soul lives forever as a discrete individual, whereas a person's ki seems to have the identity it has as long as it is between the mind and body it powers. I do think that ki is the life in the body, or the "power" of life in the body. And it's the life, or power of life, in the world.

Anyway, I'm finding it very instructive to examine how ki interacts among people and observe it in action in people's daily work and activity.

As a martial arts application, I've been thinking about agete, where the opponent grips your wrists and you raise your hands straight up, like Sagawa, or Okamoto. Rob John did it to me with completely soft arms and no effort or feeling of strength, but I couldn't feel him do it and I couldn't resist or let go.

Now, my thinking, without having experimented, is that you're already mingling your ki with the opponent's before he grabs your wrists. And with your ki fully blended with his, you direct your mind straight up: your ki goes straight up and his ki follows. And in that moment, you effortlessly raise your hands. In theory.

Or do you direct the ki up the opponent's arms? It seems like that would have a different effect...

And there are just all kinds of other things and other ways to use it.

So as I try just to get feel for ki working in myself, I'm starting with how it relates to the dantien and how that relates to the arms and legs.

But now, though I know this is going to take a lot of training and practice, if someone tells me to do something with my ki, it's going to be as if they say to do something with my hand.

Thanks.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 01-08-2011 at 08:53 AM.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

David, I encourage you to keep thinking this through, working on it and figuring out how it makes sense to you and keep trying to explain it to us! I have my own views around it - basically I kinda subscribe to the "all this is set in stone" stuff . . but then where it gets personal is that we each have a way of making that general phenomena of truths applicable for us in unique ways.

One of the things that has struck me with working with people trying to show you how to get a foot in the door with IS stuffs is that almost universally, they are doing things that "trick" your body into moving in a new way. I think the critical aspect is twofold from here:

1) You hold yourself absolutely accountable to latch on to the "logic" of what this new way of moving demands and then start to retrain everything to move this way (it does no good if you just keep doing what you were already doing and add a little IS to it). This is the part that requires analyzing what you're doing as compared to external criteria.

2) You latch completely onto the "feelings" you had when moving in this new way. Own it. Chase it like a m*****f***er. Obsess over it. You have to make it a part of you (a way, a Do, a Tao) so that it gradually is part of everything you do (not just opening doors - raising coffee, holding your child, etc.) Always assume you're doing it wrong, that's how you keep improving. The ones that stagnate forever are the ones that think they "get it".

Then its incumbent on you to keep getting hands on with people that know more than you - find them, hound them. Be annoying, but respectful, enthusiastic, but restrained, show them that you are a seeker like them and you might get some glimpses of new stuff to work on.

Anyways, thanks for sharing and keeping the conversation going. I think this is a step in the direction these discussions need to go - vis a vis - "how to's" and "how's it work" . .

I wanted to thank everyone who has contributed so far. I have some more points I want to sketch out, but this post is intended as a sort of landmark of where my understanding is at the moment. I think only a few people will be able to judge that, but I think if I am right, those who know will appreciate it.

So....here is the thing.

This morning, I was thinking about defense and I had the feeling of receiving an attack in such a way that I just enter and crush the other guy down by bending him backward and just crushing him down to my feet. I felt this as a ki/body movement, with powerful downward crushing ki, though not using much physical effort.

So then I thought, "That must be what they're talking about in daito ryu, bringing the attacker down right at your feet."

And I thought about that for a little while and I suddenly felt, "Oh, yeah. That's the same as pi quan (splitting fist) in xing yi."

So that's where I am now, with the impression that the daito ryu drop-at-your-feet method is the same ki usage as the xing yi splitting fist, pi quan.

So who can tell me if that is true?

Thanks.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 01-09-2011 at 04:18 PM.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu